Forgive my nostalgia kick as of late and come with me…to the eighties! I was in elementary school at the time and it was a more innocent era to say the least; a time when watching a guy in a blue jumpsuit float through the air gathered as many oohs and ahhs as seeing your first pair of real boobies.
Gee whiz, those astronauts were so cool! Look, he did a flip! OMG, he’s spinning a banana! Holy crap, he’s drinking little spheres of floating water! FUCK ME, THEIR ICE CREAM COMES IN BAR-FORM! So much excitement for such a young child, “Mrs. Roberts, may I go to the bathroom?”
Of course, looking back on it as an adult, I see how far we’ve failed to come. We’re still using that same junk-heap shuttle to launch us into the atmosphere; NASA has to take a wrench to that thing more than a Harley. The once-vaunted international space station is now a laughing stock due to its rent-control-worthy toilet. Our several attempts to gather data from Mars have come up empty of any tangible evidence of life.
And what has it gotten us? Other than velcro and a pen that writes upside-down (OMG), I can’t think of anything society has truly gained from this wasteful science other than bragging rights over Russia and China. I guess that counts for something.
In any case, the most painful element of this angry outburst has its roots firmly gripped in personal jealousy and lament. What I regret is the fact that, as an adolescent, I was never able to visit the one place where children can truly be happy. This is the single locale where smiles grow on trees and farts smell like rainbows; where pony rides cost a nickel and ice cream is dehydrated—Space Camp.
